Independent Gay Forum - CultureWatch

A Marriage

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:00:00 EST

by David Link

This seems to me a good story to sum up the year: complicated emotions, needless harm, yet in the end hope for all concerned.

I don’t know anything about rugby, or Gareth Thomas, but his soon-to-be ex-wife’s understanding and uplifting statement about their relationship and its end because of his homosexuality distills my own feelings throughout 2009.

It all begins and ends with the closet. But for this anachronistic social convention that is as useful today as a hitching post, Thomas would not have needed to try and convince first himself, and then someone of the opposite sex that he was straight. It is not enough, in this scheme, that we deceive ourselves; heterosexuals, too, have to be equally and everlastingly drawn into the fraud, some of them at the most intimate level.

Lies so close to the core of our human nature cannot hold for long. In earlier times, spouses like Jemma Thomas also knew the truth. Perhaps they expected less of marriage, or were equally caught up in maintaining the charade. The lies we tell ourselves are the ones we have the greatest stake in.

But each of these experiences helps us better see marriage, and better value it. That is what I hope the movement for gay marriage is adding to society as a whole: a reaffirmation of marriage’s worth, of love at its best and commitment at its most forthright.

Yes, this is about the law’s failure to recognize our relationships, and we have a very direct interest in that. It certainly involves our self-interest.

But who can speak more authoritatively about the value of something than those who do not have it? Of course we want marital equality because the constitution promises us the equal protection of the laws. But marriage is unlike any other constitutional right, because it involves two people, and in the real world one of them is likely to be heterosexual. Whatever heterosexuals think they are encouraging by either denying homosexuality exists, or insisting that homosexuals hide that fact, they are, in fact, doing something they surely do not intend: assuring that some of their own will be deceived, not in some general sense, but every day of their lives, until the predictable revelation. They are, in fact, using the force of law to guarantee that fate for some of their children.

The whole enterprise of gay rights has been to deconstruct this fabric of insincerity. No one is well served, gay or straight, by making us bear false witness against ourselves. In coming out, Gareth Thomas was doing no more than admitting what could no longer be denied; his regret was not for personal wrongdoing, but for the wrongdoing he felt the world demanded of him.

Jemma has the grace and the pragmatism to recognize that while coming out is hard for both of them, it’s better than the closet. Like many other prominent wives during the last decade, she has had to endure the same indignity lesbians and gay men do when the truth can no longer be denied. It is these spouses who are our natural allies; who sees more clearly that heterosexuals have a very direct interest in having us be honest with ourselves and with them, and to form relationships based on that honesty?

Despite her own ordeal, she is ready to continue her own needlessly interrupted life, and expresses her continuing love and good wishes to Gareth.

That is a fine note on which to end 2009. Love and good wishes to all of our readers here at IGF as well.

(H/T to Towleroad)

On Vulgarity

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 00:00:00 EST

by David Link

One of the most oppressive burdens gays have to carry in the fight for equality is the permission some heterosexuals give themselves to talk explicitly in public about specific sexual practices some homosexuals may prefer. Any particular sexual act, described in lurid enough detail to a nonparticipant, can be made to sound repellant, particularly to someone who does not share the participants’ taste. The Marquis de Sade was not even trying to disgust people in describing his catholic sexual escapades – most all of them heterosexual -- yet remains to this day the brand name for sexual disgust.

Which is why heterosexuals nearly always leave one another’s sexual proclivities at the bedroom door. With the exception of frat-boy braggadocio (usually among single men, and usually in private) it is rare to hear public discussion of specific heterosexual acts, from the mundane to the exotic.

But anti-gay heterosexuals (and even some who are neutral) exercise something close to voyeuristic exuberance in peppering discussion of gay civil rights with vulgar and extreme descriptions of sexual acts. In 1991, California’s state senator David Knowles set the standard, in an obscene tirade on the Senate floor during debate on a bill that would have done no more than prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. Knowles insisted on describing “the specifics of the lifestyle” in shocking terms that left members speechless, and fearful about whether the publicly broadcast debate would violate obscenity laws. After an uproar in the chamber, Knowles’s fellow conservative Republicans had to shout him down.

This is still a preferred tactic in opposing gay equality, both at home and abroad. In our own country, Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber has been quoted (by his anti-gay supporters) reducing homosexual sexual orientation to “one man violently cramming his penis into another man’s lower intestine and calling it ‘love’ “ In Uganda, a full-page newspaper ad, headlined “Top Homos In Uganda Named” provides a Sadistic catalogue of the sexual preferences of various homosexuals there.

Of all the inequalities lesbians and gay men have to endure, this one is among the most degrading. No heterosexual would stand for being diminished to the sum of his or her sexual activities, and homosexuals should not be held to a different standard. Without sex, we would all be less than human, but not even a beast is composed only of its carnality.

This obsession among some heterosexuals is more than disrespectful; it is really the only distraction they can come up with to keep us off the subject, which is equal rights under the law. We are having a civil discussion, here, and I don’t think it’s out of line for us to expect heterosexuals to show us the same courtesy about private matters they enforce and expect among themselves.

Picking the Wrong Fight

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 00:00:00 EST

by David Link

The debate over whether AOUSC or OPM should adminster the FEHBP for judicial employees is actually a deep and important one, whether or not we have a DPBOA.

And did I mention this is related to DOMA?

It should be obvious from the profusion of acronyms that I’m talking about federal law. Last January, Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski ruled, in his capacity as an administrator of the federal courts, that the Administrative Office of the United States Courts would violate its own equal employment rules if it denied Karen Golinski, a court employee, health benefits for her lawful same-sex spouse, and directed the AO to provide the benefits. That decision was never appealed to any court or other reviewing body. After the AO processed Golinksi’s paperwork under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, the Obama administration’s Office of Personnel Management stepped in to put a stop to this blatant disregard of DOMA’s unambiguous demand that the federal government must discriminate against same-sex couples.

The statement from Elaine Kaplan, OPM’s General Counsel is reasoned and explicitly recognizes that DOMA is both unfair in general, and is even “painful” to court employees like Golinski. That is why (the statement notes) the President supports DOMA’s legislative repeal, and in the interim, the Domestic Partner Benefits and Obligations Act. Nevertheless, DOMA is the law.

The administration’s stated reluctance to enforce a law it opposes makes it a little harder to view this as a political fight over gay rights; this is a battle over whether the courts are truly independent of the administration when it comes to their own employees, or whether the employees of our constitutionally separate court system are subject to the employment rules applicable to the Executive branch. That is actually a profound argument about the structure of our government, and one whose outcome isn’t entirely clear.

But what is clear is that the administration did not need to pick this fight. An uncountable number of administrative issues like this are ignored or neglected or simply never noticed every day. Given government’s enormous size and scope in the modern world, administrators have to prioritize their time and efforts.

Consequently, it is no compliment to this administration (and I would single out the Department of Justice, whose judgment the administration is following) that this is the ground they chose to fight on. No one views this as a battle over executive power, and after the Bush administration, it's pretty pathetic that this is the best characterization the administration could hope for. Obama's folks are politically conflicted over how to handle DOMA and gay rights in general, and that weakness is highlighted by the fact that the head of OPM, John Berry, is the highest-ranking openly gay official in the administration.

He is now being held in an undisclosed closet.

UPDATE: It's worse than I'd thought. I assumed Berry was hiding behind the skirts of a heterosexual Elaine Kaplan, but it seems she's openly gay as well. I suppose it's progress that we're in the position where the governmental insults and slights come from our own people, but, as Seth Meyers says so eloquently, "Really?"

Rick Warren and Martin Ssempa: The End of the Affair?

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:00:00 EST

by David Link

You don’t have to go far to find examples of our opponents subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) invoking pedophilia and child molestation when they’re asked about homosexuality. But you’d be hard pressed to find a more explicit, concise and complete conflation of the two distinct subjects than in this letter from Uganda’s Martin Ssempa to Rick Warren about Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill. There are precious few paragraphs that do not explicitly misdescribe the bill’s goal in terms of protecting children from rape, and those few fill the gap by repeated use of the word “evil” to describe gays.

The bill’s own title does not deter Ssempa from his belief that it is only about child molestation, so I won’t bother to suggest that a bill drafted to solve that real problem in no uncertain terms would be unobjectionable, and would meet with almost universal support.

But amidst the comically gymnastic rhetoric, Ssempa stumbles upon something about Rick Warren’s own position that is no less true for having been made by a fool. In 2008, Warren supported a Ugandan boycott of the Anglican Lambeth Conference because of the ordination of Gene Robinson as bishop. Warren says Ssempa misquotes him in saying at the time that homosexuality is not a human right; on this, all we know for sure is that both Ssempa and Warren can be disingenuous and/or flexible in stating their positions on homosexuality.

Still, the bigger point is this: Despite some current statements, Warren’s personal struggle with the issue has found him saying things that give aid and comfort to the Ssempas of the world and their fellow-traveling bigots. (And yes, I am comfortable concluding that Martin Ssempa falls well within even my own narrow reading of the term “bigot”). Warren cannot be surprised that things he has said and done in the past, including his support for the Lambeth boycott and Proposition 8, could lead people to believe he has the same promiscuously anti-gay position that other prominent church leaders seem so proud to declare.

I am glad Warren has now taken a firm stand against the criminalization of adult, voluntary same-sex relations. He will find, if he takes the time to think about it, that it needs no great leap of logic to see that a love that should not be criminalized might also be worth recognizing – at least if you think committed love is a socially good thing.

But the bigger issue for Warren, I think, is to look hard at the tactics and intent of the people who cite him for his anti-gay support. Warren has distanced himself from Ssempa, but why does Ssempa believe Warren should be at his side? Can he see, in Martin Ssempa, a little bit of what it is we have to fight every day of our lives? I can only hope Warren will understand us a little better now that he, too, is the object of one of our ruthless, amoral enemies.

(H/T, as usual, to Box Turtle Bulletin)

A Conversation in a Car

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:00:00 EST

by David Link

It’s not much more than a conversation in a car, but if you think about it, it says a whole lot.

Dennis Prager and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach are driving in Botswana over Thanksgiving, and while the video recorder is on, the subject of same-sex marriage comes up. They have a spirited discussion.

For those who are younger, some perspective: Fifty years ago, such a conversation would have been unthinkable. Not just hard to have, but inconceivable – and not only among heterosexual men, but even among most people who were homosexual themselves. The most visionary of our early supporters could see marriage as a possibility, but in a world where homosexuality was a crime, a sickness and a sin, there were far more important things that needed to be accomplished before marriage moved up the list.

It’s hard to emphasize that enough. Fifty years ago, our sheer existence was not even acknowledgeable. Particularly because of the criminal laws, we ran enormous risks even discussing our lives with friendly heterosexuals, much less trying to change the laws that enforced our silence. And good luck, in those days, trying to find friendly heterosexuals.

Now listen to Rabbi Boteach. While we could all probably think of supplemental arguments to back him up (Prager, of course, is not supportive), he is an articulate and feisty advocate, within the strictures of his religious belief.

More important, there does not seem to be anyone in the car who is gay to bring the subject up. While it is our rights that are at stake, and while we are an infinitesimally small minority, our arguments are sound enough, and clear enough that they have penetrated into the nation’s conscience. We are not the only ones who understand how fundamentally unfair current law is – or feel we have an interest in changing it.

It is conversations like this that take place out of the public eye, and out of our hearing that are the most important now. As I said earlier, we cannot ever comprise a majority; our equality entirely depends on heterosexuals now. It took us a half century to pave the way for them to have these conversations, but now they are happening everywhere. Not all of them will be well-articulated or even sympathetic. But in light of the silence of generations past, every one of them will be helpful.

(H/T to Good As You)

New Jersey

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 00:00:00 EST

by David Link

Two things in this New Jersey poll on same-sex marriage caught my eye.

First, look at the breakdown of Catholics (who comprise the largest religious group in the state): 48% support same-sex marriage, 40% oppose, and 12% are undecided. The last group certainly deserves comment. Catholics aren’t supposed to be undecided on issues the Vatican has pronounced upon; that’s for Protestants.

But it is that supportive plurality – and near-majority – of Catholics that we have to keep focusing on. The church takes pride in sticking to its historical ignorance of human sexuality, and is doubling down on prejudice by aggressively recruiting the most anti-gay Anglicans, overlooking things like married priests and near complete acceptance of birth control. Church leadership has now gone beyond hypocrisy and is becoming obsessed with homosexuality.

And that is not going unnoticed in American pews. U.S. Catholics have long ignored the Vatican on birth control and divorce without much fuss from the berobed ones, and may be seeing that the church’s position on homosexuality is part of the same continuum of museum-quality bias about sex and marriage – a trinity of sexual sanctimony from the famously (if theoretically) celibate, all-male priesthood. Given the fact that heterosexuals get a pass on their issues, many may even see the new crusade for what it is – pure bias against a minority; and a bias the church is backing up with an awful lot of financial support that is not going to other, perhaps more important church priorities.

That 48% plurality shows how many Catholics remain in their church despite, not because of its bizarre leaders. That is the kind of faith I lack, and admire in those who stay in the church I left.

But there’s one other thing in the poll that shouldn’t go unnoticed: 46% of all respondents said the issue of same-sex marriage was “not at all important.”

This is a point I have made before, and continue to think is at the heart of the political debate we are being forced to have. I think it’s fair to ask that 46% this question: Would it be important to you if you could not get legally married?

While I’m sure some would say their own marital status in the eyes of the state is equally unimportant, it is the rest – the certain majority to whom legal marriage is important – who need to know that we feel the same. The lack of marriage is a fundamental distortion in our lives, as it would be in theirs. Because we are a minority, the polling on this issue won’t ever indicate how profoundly important this is to us. Their opinion is the only one that matters because they are the majority. We need heterosexuals to consider that we are not engaged in this fight for trivial or frivolous reasons – that we really do value marriage as much as they do. We need it to be important to them because it is so important to us.

Innate Debate

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:00:00 EST

by David Link

I’ve come to accept that none of our commenters want to talk about what I want to talk about. This has been a serious blow to my ego. It’s fortunate our commenters have interesting conversations among themselves, which keep me distracted from my own pain.

One of the most interesting discussions has been the one about whether homosexuality is innate. This isn't anything I was prepared to go into, but if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

I obviously think sexual orientation, itself, is innate, as does BobN. Quo, Debrah and TS seem to think otherwise – though they may only be talking about homosexual orientation, and may think heterosexuality is innate. Needless to say, they can all speak for themselves.

This is a subject fraught with political implications, and I think Debrah is right to question the bona fides of a lot of the research. On the other hand, I know that while I had to learn some things about sex, no one had to coach me into being attracted to men. On this, I am with Augustine, who noted long before our present debate that men, in particular, have an objective indicator of who they are sexually attracted to, and it is notoriously impervious to persuasion. (This may be different for women).

I think the discussion got off track with discussion of a media story (which I never saw) about some boys who were molested by their adoptive father; the boys (apparently) "became" gay. I'd like to know more about that, but I think it's wise to separate psychological traumas that may play themselves out in sexual behavior from sexual orientation, itself, which may (or may not) develop independent of environment.

So the question for everyone, gay or straight (or otherwise) is this: how did you learn your sexual orientation? Or did you simply recognize it? If you're heterosexual, do you think you could become homosexual?

Now, of course, I'm dying to see what other subject you all will want to talk about.

Common Sense in the Ugandan Crusade

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 00:00:00 EST

by David Link

Some ice may be breaking in Uganda. Box Turtle Bulletin links to an essay written by John Nagenda, a senior advisor to President Museveni, opposing the anti-homosexuality bill.

The colorfully written piece brings into focus the part of the bill that I think transcends any particular penalty: death, imprisonment or even misdemeanor fine. Its original sin is its naïve and vicious attempt to enforce purity – to create a Uganda free of “any form of sexual relations between persons of the same sex,” and even “the promotion or recognition of such sexual relations,” whether inside or outside the country. Its target is only a small minority, but it intends to be comprehensive. Every citizen is coerced into turning in suspected violators, or themselves facing prosecution.

To describe the bill, Nagenda invokes a word Americans will understand -- McCarthyism – and helpfully explains to his fellow Ugandans how witch-hunts occur. But he then offers an even more apt analogy: the Inquisition.

Christians of good conscience have powerful reasons to be hypersensitive about this. There should be no doubt, after the extensive investigative work Box Turtle Bulletin has done, that several American Christians had a formative role in the bill’s inception. They have exported their misguided notions about homosexuality, and Ugandan politicians bought the goods, and placed them at the very heart of their new crusade.

The bill states, as a matter of law, that same-sex attraction “is not an innate and immutable characteristic.” At the very least, that is a matter of controversy, and it is barely that to anyone who has seriously considered the issue. Only a fringe group of religious fanatics and deranged psychologists manqué insist, today, that homosexuals are just heterosexuals gone wrong, and should man up and marry a good opposite-sex partner.

Nevertheless, this merry band found in some Ugandan politicians the credulous audience lacking in America (at least among politicians who wish to be taken seriously), and the result is what would be expected when ignorant religious beliefs are married to political ambition. By asserting pseudoscience as an enforceable principle of law, the bill strips homosexuals of their very existence, turns them into nothing more than errant – and criminal – heterosexuals, and enlists all good citizens into the war against them.

This turns homosexuality into heresy. That is what American Christianists have been trying to do here – return us to the days when homosexuality was criminal, homosexuals were ashamed and silent, and heterosexuals could count on the police to enforce that shame and silence. Any citizen with a petty grievance or a niggling suspicion was empowered to press the levers of power. When rumors are evidence, people can destroy one another at will.

It doesn’t take a lot to see how much damage that can cause, and has caused – particularly for anyone who’s paid even the slightest attention to history. From the Crusades to the Inquisition to the Holocaust, the quest for purity inevitably brings out the worst in us, not the best.

Uganda can avoid learning that lesson the hard way. But they’ll need to listen to better advice than America’s traveling snake-oil salesmen are giving them. Nagenda’s essay is a good sign that common sense may prevail.

Non-bigotry (Cont.): Rick Warren

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 00:00:00 EST

by David Link

Would a bigot help?

That’s an important question in thinking about Rick Warren. He has been as harmful to gay equality as any religious figure on the right, particularly for his role in urging his parishioners – and everyone else who “believes what the Bible says” – to vote against marriage equality in California -- all the while denying he had done any such thing.

He has also played a starring role in stirring up the pot in Uganda against homosexuals. Which is why his strong and explicit statement against the anti-homosexuality bill there is so important. As Rachel Maddow says, “better late than never.”

So is he a bigot? The epithet is potent enough to do to our opponents what they do to us – charge them with a fundamental lack of humanity or decency. Warren’s statement is a firm assertion of both, and does him credit.

But Warren is all over the map on gay equality. On her show last night, Maddow clearly nailed Warren’s incoherence, both on Prop. 8 and on his role in Uganda. But that is where I think a bit of empathy may be in order (and I know this will be controversial).

Like so many other heterosexuals of his age and older, Warren is caught in a bind. He believed the lies and misperceptions about homosexuality that history, particularly as embodied in his religion, have taught him. He relied on those distortions, and built his belief system around them.

For many years, we did too. It was hard to realize and then live out the truth about our own lives against those perversions of truth. But as the Catholic church learns daily, you cannot deny nature long without paying a price. Sex and intimacy are fundamental to human beings, and cannot be either renounced or faked. We learned that the hard way, and are trying to correct the record so it doesn't happen again.

Warren is obviously struggling with that. His conversation after Prop. 8 with Melissa Etheridge may have been a turning point. But his loyalty to the lies history taught him about us still permits him to blind himself to the lies he tells himself. And no lies are more persuasive then those.

No one should go easy on Warren. It is the relentlessness of Maddow and Andrew Sullivan and particularly Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin that has put the pressure on him to correct the problem he was complicit in in Uganda. The fact he has done so can make an enormous difference.

But he lives here, and is accountable here. The inconsistency of his position on homosexuality is more apparent with each passing day. A bigot, I think, would refuse to face that. I’m not sure whether Warren is a bigot in that sense. But his action now should give us reason to hope. He can be a powerful ally.

Repugnant

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 00:00:00 EST

by David Link

This is exactly what I was worried about. By taking the death penalty out of the Uganda anti-homosexuality bill, the government has improved the bill's reputation, and its chances.

The Minister of Ethics and Integrity, James Nsaba Buturo said the government supports the bill because homosexuality and lesbianism are “repugnant to the Ugandan culture,” but wanted a more “refined” set of punishments. Death was too much, so the refinements include life in prison and reeducation.

Whether the punishment is sufficiently refined or not, Buturo articulates the rotten core of this bill: a heterosexual majority running roughshod over the dignity of a very small, and very vulnerable minority for no reason other than political dominance. And heterosexuals can get swept into the vortex; the bill imposes a regime of controlled speech and opinion, where objections to homosexuality may be freely uttered, but support is prohibited.

I don’t know about Ugandan culture, but that abuse of power is repugnant to any civilized government. And I am afraid our heated rhetoric has not helped. To my mind, at least, this was never about the death penalty; it was always about the discrimination. But after we set the stage with our focus on government murder, the bill now looks, to many people, ever so much more reasonable. We may have cause to regret our inadvertent aid in making that happen.

Non-bigotry (Cont.): Sen. Paul Sarlo

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 00:00:00 EST

by David Link

The commenters on Non-bigotry made some very good arguments. Lymis is right on point that the rabbi is a textbook example of someone who is prejudiced (whether or not that is bigotry). In contrast, Pauliji has no doubt the rabbi is a bigot. Joe Perez has a lengthy post at his blog that I think John Corvino is more qualified to respond to than me. I think this topic is worth more time, and I’d like to devote a few posts over the next week to examining arguments made by some specific people who oppose marriage equality.

Senator Paul Sarlo was the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and was a No vote from the start. However, he ran the very controversial hearing well, and the explanation of his vote is respectful:

Yes, I am opposed to the bill at this point in time, but their (Garden State Equality) advocacy has come a long way, and I am quite certain some time in the near future, I believe the tide has turned a little bit, and they will win with their issue. I am still opposed personally because of my religious beliefs as a Roman Catholic, and as senator of the 36th District, which is mostly made up of Irish and Italian Catholics, and Orthodox Jews.

Two things seem important to me about this statement. First, while I can’t speak for New Jersey’s legislature, I have worked in and with California’s for over a decade. It is rare here for any legislator voting in a public hearing to cite his or her religion as the (or even a) reason for their vote. While particular religious arguments may be made (biblical passages about charity, for example, to support public welfare programs), outside of gay rights (and the very rare bill these days in California about abortion) an individual’s religious beliefs are simply not used as a political argument. That is a consistent anomaly in the debate over gay rights.

Sen. Sarlo’s concern about the religious beliefs of his constituents is a slightly different matter, but actually intensifies the inherent problem. While the Orthodox Jews in his district would probably strongly support his vote, only about half of his fellow Catholics would, if they are like Catholics in the rest of the nation. And I assume he has Jewish voters in his district who are not orthodox and support same-sex marriage. Moreover, this explicit appeal to specific groups quite obviously leaves out all of his constituents who are nonreligious, or belong to other religions. This may not be a political problem in his district, but as a general public policy matter, it is certainly unfair, if not unwise.

But he says something else that is even more telling. He is sure that “they” (Garden State Equality and by extension, lesbians and gay men) will win “their” issue. Equality is certainly our issue by virtue of the fact that we don’t have it and must fight for it. But the concept is a constitutional one, and as such, it does not “belong” to any minority, but to all citizens. “Equal Justice Under Law” is carved into the entrance to the United States Supreme Court, not for any particular “us,” but as a guiding principle for the laws that apply to the nation we all share.

Sen. Sarlo separates himself from this foundation when he assigns the fight for equal laws to us. The stunning success of the gay rights movement has been to help heterosexuals see exactly this point. They have as much stake in honoring the constitution as we have battling not to be excluded from it.

To be fair, Sen. Sarlo does understand this. His state’s supreme court ruled that same-sex couples did not have equal rights in New Jersey, and told the legislature they must resolve that discrepancy. Sarlo believes that comprehensive civil unions satisfy the command of equality. But the religion he cites as authority for opposing our equal marriage does not support laws that grant us civil unions. He does not explain how he resolves that inconsistency.

I don’t think Sen. Sarlo is a bigot. Unlike some of our most vocal opponents, he is comfortable articulating that we are entitled to equality, and differs only on the means of achieving that. That seems to me an important factor in deciding whether to level a charge of bigotry. What do you think?

Non-bigotry

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:00:00 EST

by David Link

I thought a lot about John Corvino’s piece on bigotry while listening to the New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on same-sex marriage yesterday. I deeply agree with John that the word “bigot” should be used sparingly so that its very strong condemnatory force is not diluted. Many people who don’t support same-sex marriage are not bigots, and it does not help us to use the epithet promiscuously.

John tries to tease out a more helpful definition of “bigot” than dictionaries provide, and moves the ball downfield a bit. But he sets himself a hard task.

That struck home for me when a rabbi (whose name I did not catch) testified against the New Jersey bill, and asked the legislators to think about the fate of an “innocent lonely child” who is adopted by a same-sex married couple. His testimony is at the 8:18 mark in Blue Jersey’s live blog. The unadorned words do not capture the rabbi’s deep, fearful concern for this hypothetical child.

I obviously can’t speak about what moved this man. But listening to him, it is tragically clear that there is no room at all in his world for the simple possibility that such a child might not be lonely in a loving home headed by a gay couple, or that the child could thrive and have a wonderful life. The irony is that by eliminating such a possibility from his imagination, he may be preventing some real child that tangible benefit.

It is this moral editing – this internal censorship of good possibilities – that exempts some people from being called bigots. I can’t really imagine how anyone could do that – suppress from their consciousness a fellow human being’s decency or happiness or value. But it is something necessary (if not sufficient) for prejudice to prevail. I don’t think this rabbi wishes us harm; but it is just not within him to see us as blessed. His cramped view of the world takes something essential away from us.

That is a blindness, but I don’t think it is necessarily blameworthy. To my mind, it not as condemnable as the actions of those who can (and do) see us in our ordinary lives, yet intentionally exploit the bias against us for political advantage. The harm to our equality is the same in either case, but there is a moral difference that we should acknowledge.

It is possible this learned man falls into the latter category. But until we know for sure, I don’t think we can call him a bigot. We can, though, wish him to see us more generously.

Frank Kameny Bears Witness

info@indegayforum.org (Jonathan Rauch) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Jonathan Rauch

The extraordinary Frank Kameny, whose stubborn activism in the face of fierce repression did so much for gay rights, emails movingly about his attendance at the swearing-in of David Huebner, the new openly gay ambassador to New Zealand Samoa. Excerpted with Frank's permission...

I was invited by the White House, and attended, a ceremony on Friday afternoon December 4, which, at the time and even more so in retrospect, left me feeling deeply touched, satisfied and comforted. On two major levels this would have been so utterly beyond even being imagined when I became involved a half-century ago that I felt that comment would be in order. And so I thought I might share it. Unlike the Salahis, I WAS invited by the White House and my name WAS on the guest lists at the doors.

The occasion was the swearing in of David Huebner as Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa. Huebner is a 49-year-old prestigious, very openly gay attorney. He is white. His partner of some 20 years, Duane McWaine is a medical doctor-psychiatrist. He is black. Numerous members of both Huebner's and McWaine's extended families were present and visibly cheerfully comingled.

The actual formal swearing-in was done by Vice President Biden. I had been assigned a seat in the front row center. As he came by, Biden recognized me from previous encounters, greeted me effusively, and told the mothers what I was "an important person."

Biden then gave a very nice speech, emphasizing diversity as doubly manifested by Huebner and McWaine. In the course of it, he suggested that since McWaine, like ambassadorial spouses generally, was going to have to put his own professional practice on hold while he accompanied Huebner, perhaps a compensatory salary ought to be paid to ambassadors' spouses.

On both counts — racial and gay — this would have been totally beyond inagining back in the 1960s, when I began agitating. So while we have a way to go — all is certainly not yet aright — we have certainly come a very, very, very long way in what, from an historical standpoint, is a rather short time. I'm sure that I won't be around to see the final resolution of these issues — if they are ever totally resolved, —- but many of you will certainly see us even closer to resolution than we are now. Work hard and be persistent and patient.

Gay IS Good. And the only race is the Human Race. Pound away at those and never compromise, however slightly.

Uganda and Us

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 00:00:00 EST

by David Link

Officials in Uganda may be responding to our rhetoric rather than our rationale. Box Turtle Bulletin notes that amendments to the anti-homosexuality bill could replace the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” with a life sentence. That may be why BTB is now only referring to the bill as the “Anti-Gay Bill” rather than the “Kill Gays Bill.”

But this is exactly why I was originally troubled by our inflammatory rhetoric that seemed to focus more on the penalty than the problem.

The death penalty is the ultimate government-sponsored punishment, and reveals the vicious and inhuman impulse behind the legislation. But even if the bill included only fixed prison terms, it is every bit as retrograde and malicious. It explicitly carves out homosexuality from the moral and legal universe. It establishes a civil world in which lesbians and gay men have no place; worse than that, it makes us criminals, and attempts to make even our supporters complicit in the crime of our mere existence. Citizens may not even speak favorably of homosexuality, or write affirmingly about equality without criminal sanction.

But to the extent America has any moral high ground on this issue, it is only a matter of degree. Both DOMA and DADT do implicitly what this bill is proud to say it does – invoke the force of the law to treat homosexuals as a different kind of being from heterosexuals, and draw specific rules that apply only to homosexuals, with entirely different rules applicable to heterosexuals. For any heterosexuals reading this, try to imagine a law that would result in your dismissal if you mentioned your spouse. Then imagine what it might be like if you could not publicly even testify before Congress about that law’s unfairness, because even that would have the same result. And try to imagine what a law to allow you the qualified ability to speak might look like. Finally, imagine someone telling you this whole scheme is not a violation of your right to free speech.

To be sure, ours are only civil sanctions, not criminal ones, and the penalties are economic, psychological and social. That makes it easier for many heterosexuals to invoke a plausible deniability about the segregation the laws impose. No prison time here.

But irrespective of the kind of penalty, this is the most craven and degraded use of law. Fortunately, after many decades of work, we have the social and constitutional structure in the U.S. to minimize the damage, and fight for something better. I don’t see anything like that to protect the homosexual citizens of Uganda.

Silent Majority

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 00:00:00 EST

by David Link

While there is no shortage of anger about the result of yesterday’s vote in the New York State Senate on gay marriage, there is ample praise for the civil and respectful floor debate. I would agree, except for one thing.

What debate?

A debate requires at least two sides, some exchange and (in a perfect world) maybe even a bit of ground-shifting. But what happened yesterday shows that our opponents have nothing but politics and prejudice on their side, and don’t even feel the need to defend them anymore.

Only a single senator, Ruben Diaz, Sr., stood up to champion a No vote. Everyone else on his side was silent in the chamber. Diaz’s oratorical contribution did not bother to include any explanation of what might be wrong with equality. The first six minutes of his speech were an appeal to Republicans. He is a Democrat, and wanted to stir up resentment among his colleagues on the other side who don’t get much gay support (e.g., in Diaz’s pretty naked words, money). He then launched into a lengthy recitation of the obvious fact that there are religions that oppose homosexuality, and offered a complete roll call of the 31 states that voted gay marriage down. Finally, Diaz urged his fellow popularly elected senators not to “do away with the people’s will.”

Amidst all of this, there was no argument against same-sex marriage (procreation, preserving the state’s economic resources, supporting heterosexual families), and it is telling that Diaz felt no need to do so. As Senator Tom Libous (another No vote) said afterward, “I just don’t think the majority care too much about [gay marriage] at this time. . . “ If you can rely on the majority not caring much about the rights of a minority, why go out of your way to stir the pot?

Yes, Republicans should feel grieved that gays support democrats (who support them), and yes, there is a long and storied history of religious persecution of gay people, and yes, a majority of Americans still continue to oppose gay marriage. The question before the house was "Why?" Why is it good or fair, or sound public policy to favor heterosexuals over homosexual couples?

Compare that to the speeches – pretty much all of them – in support of equal marriage rights. While some of them did invoke political tropes, they all actually engaged the issue before them: should gay people be treated differently under the law than straight people? If not, why not? They came at the question in different ways, but all of them actually addressed the public policy issue. I loved the speeches of Diane Savino and Ruth Hassell-Thompson, myself, but there are a lot of fine, substantive speeches to choose from.

The silence in the senate reaffirms how the tide is shifting. It used to be us who had to remain in the shadows. Now, we and our supporters can take pride in publicly articulating our arguments, while the other side – whether it’s in the New York Senate or the precincts of Washington state – seem a little bit embarrassed at their lack of real, civic, credible arguments, and just want to be left alone.

Because existing law already incorporates anti-gay discrimination, our opponents have the considerable force of inertia on their side. But just because you have a majority doesn’t mean you have an argument.

***

And I have to add this (kind of) snarky note: Washington's comprehensive domestic partnership law goes into effect today.

All or Nothing in New York?

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:00:00 EST

by David Link

Equality lost in the New York Senate 38-24. It wasn't even close.

Again, I hope our folks back there know what they're doing. Perhaps the Senate would reject even domestic partnership rights. But we don't know because, here on the verge of 2010, they've never even tried.

And in the meantime, New York state's same-sex couples have pretty much nothing.

Learning from Maine

info@indegayforum.org (Jonathan Rauch) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Jonathan Rauch

James Oaksun, a Maine-based libertarian activist and analyst, has published what strikes me as an astute analysis of what went wrong for same-sex marriage advocates in Maine. It's available, in PDF format, here.

Like me and others, he argues that the pro-gay-marriage side must get beyond defensiveness and evasion on the schools issue, and he offers an interesting suggestion for taking the bull by the horns."Perhaps the framing is to talk about what modern society asks the schools to do. Educate, yes. But also prepare the leaders of tomorrow to function collaboratively in a diverse society. The reality of life is, yes, there are gay people and they are not going away."

Not bad. My own first-cut thought about a non-defensive message was "teaching kids that discrimination is wrong and that everyone deserves a family."

Time for some focus-group research?

In any case, it's good to see recognition spreading that, like it or not, we can't talk about same-sex marriage without also talking about teaching same-sex marriage.

Memo to the anti-SSM right: having picked this fight on education, be prepared to lose it. Sooner or later, teaching about gay marriage won't seem so scary. Your ads may even help normalize it.

Ban Divorce in California!

info@indegayforum.org (Jonathan Rauch) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Jonathan Rauch

I mean, if Californians are serious about protecting marriage, why stop at banning gay marriage?

An activist calls their bluff with a satirical initiative campaign that just might get on the ballot.

And the ad is funny.

Not Cool

info@indegayforum.org (Brian Chase) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Brian Chase

Lots of gay news sites and blogs, and not just the skanky ones, have recently been repeating rumors that a certain seventeen-year-old movie hunk is gay. Rolling Stone Magazine practically badgered the kid about his sexual orientation in an interview.

Am I the only person who thinks this is reprehensible? This is a kid we are talking about. Yes, he looks like he just stepped out of an Abercrombie and Fitch campaign, but he is still a kid. He is probably living with his parents, he is dealing all of the drama that comes with being a star, and I am fairly certain he would rather not have to deal with this.

We are not talking about the famous middle-aged socialite son of a renowned designer who invites the press to cover every element of his life but inexplicably refuses to answer simple straightforward questions about whether or not he is gay, giving rise to the implication that being gay is a deep, dark, shameful thing (as a purely hypothetical example). We are talking about a seventeen-year-old.

To the actor’s credit, he dealt with Rolling Stone’s obnoxious inquires really well. There were no freaked-out denials or feigned indignation. He pretty much just ignored the questioner, which was a classier response than was deserved.

Gay people should know better than to indulge in this sort of thing. We all had to deal with coming out. We know how traumatic it is. If the actor is gay, this is just the kind of thing that makes coming out more difficult. Any gay blogger or journalist who tries to drive up traffic with this “story” should be ashamed.

Offensive

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:00:00 EST

by David Link

I feel a bit guilty about focusing on Adam Lambert and music and marriage and other local issues when there is a real threat to gay rights in Uganda. “Gay rights” sounds almost quaint in this context, given that the proposed law is the closest thing I’ve seen in my lifetime to the Nuremberg Laws.

American bloggers seem to have coalesced around calling it the “Kill Gays” bill, and I obviously agree that if it were enacted, it would ultimately lead to that. In its present version, the death penalty would apply to “aggravated homosexuality,” which includes sex with a minor or a disability, or someone with AIDS.

This is bad enough. But by focusing on the limited circumstances in which the law would impose state-sanctioned death, I think we run the risk of missing the far broader and more dangerous part of the text: the part that establishes “The offence of homosexuality.”

That was implicit in America’s ancient sodomy laws, which were sometimes no more specific than prohibiting “the crime against nature.” That could be any of a million things, but most people understood it to be homosexuality in some form. Those laws are now a thing of the past, both here and in other civilized nations.

Uganda is determined to uncivilize itself and head straight into a new Dark Age by formally and explicitly criminalizing an offense they call homosexuality. In fact, the bill, itself, says that current law is defective because it “. . .has no comprehensive provision catering for [sic] anti homosexuality.”

The bill’s single-minded focus on punishing homosexuality is breathtaking. The mere intention to commit homosexuality will expose the offender to life imprisonment. The law also prohibits and punishes speaking publicly in favor of gay rights in any form. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is a progressive dream by comparison.

But even that is not enough for this thuggish piece of aggression. Anyone who even knows about someone who is gay has an obligation to turn them in – whether it’s a family member, a dear friend or a stranger. Failure to do that is also a punishable offense.

All of this arises from the premise that homosexuality, by itself, is an “offence.” Once that is established in the law, everything else flows from it. The power of the state to protect citizens from danger is called into play in all its majesty and force, up to and including making sure that citizens who are not themselves homosexual must report to the authorities any real or suspected violations. This is how genocides start.

Calling the bill “retrograde” seems wildly inadequate. The modern world has come so far on gay equality, and this detestable and gruesome scheme looks like a sick joke.

But it is not. Its proponents have put it forward in all seriousness. Its vile assumptions and loathsome, inevitable consequences deserve to be condemned explicitly. Box Turtle Bulletin has done a thorough and excellent job of covering this story, and its archives are a primary source for anyone who is interested.

Our Fierce Advocate

info@indegayforum.org (Stephen H. Miller) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Stephen H. Miller

Let's get this straight, errr correct. Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, a libertarian-leaning Reagan-appointee, orders health benefits for a lesbian spouse of a federal employee, and the Obama White House, through its highest ranking openly gay appointee (John Berry, head of the Office of Personnel Management), attempts to thwart the judge's order? Get ready for calls to protest. Oh, sorry, make that write more checks to Democrats.

More. The Obama Administration is opposing DOMA as "unfair" but defending it (separate and unequal treatment of gays) as "constitutional" at the same time. It appears that gay legal equality may be the sole area of U.S. law where Eric Holder's Justice Department is not leaning over backwards to take the liberal-left judicial line.

Swiss Miss

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by David Link

Should people be able to vote on the rights of minorities like this? I know I'd be mad -- and probably file a lawsuit -- if anyone tried something like it in my country.

Adam Lambert’s Generation

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by David Link

I’ve been thinking about Adam Lambert from a different direction, which I hope provides context that has been missing from this discussion. In a nutshell, we need to consider that Lambert grew up in a generation that wasn’t sufficiently schooled in the double standard he is now struggling with.

He was born in 1982. When he was 11, the nation was having its tortured conversation about gay equality with Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, followed by the even worse spectacle of the Defense of Marriage Act. While each was a slap in the face to equal rights, the simple fact that kids — that everyone — could hear this very public political discussion reveals how little was left of the closet during Lambert’s youth.

Those of us who came of age in the 1960s and 70s (and, it goes without saying, earlier) took the closet for granted — which is why so many of us fought so hard to dismantle it. As a boy growing up in California — and in the theater — Lambert may have simply accepted his sexual orientation, irrespective of public misunderstandings of homosexuality. I certainly don’t know this, but Lambert’s interview on the CBS Early Show gave me the impression that he truly doesn’t see what the fuss is about.

That seems to be characteristic of younger people, and it’s an important point of reference. They take it for granted that kissing is an acceptable (and sometimes thrilling) behavior, and don’t have a different rule for gays. Those who are agitated by a same-sex kiss, from the Mormon authorities in Salt Lake City to the ABC censors, look as puritan and quaint to them as the folks who put Lucy and Ricky in two different beds.

Grabbing a dancer and shoving him into your crotch is a different matter. Lambert made a game attempt to argue it was spontaneous, and that might be true. Or it might not. But whether that instantaneous move was more like Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” during the Super Bowl or her crotch-grabbing move on the same show Lambert was on, the bottom line is that this kind of thing is a given in popular music and dancing today, across the board. Whether it’s local officials trying to prevent kids at school dances from pretty explicit and unambiguous sexual gyrations, or graphic lyrics, or choreography that may be inspired by the Kama Sutra, we live in a world, and at a time, when popular music is a sexual playpen.

Whether that’s good or bad, ABC censors and CBS interviewers and all the other fretters and worrywarts who are aflutter (if not a-Twitter) over Lambert give the appearance of inhabiting a nearly vanished world where gay people could be chastised for things straight people do all the time.

Lambert and his generation are reacting rationally to the hallucinations about homosexuality that older generations grew up with and still cling to. Their view is naturally egalitarian; gay people are part of the world. The closet is another risible relic to them, like commercials for cigarettes. They see the double standard for what it is: unnecessary.

Religious Conscience vs. 'Equality'

info@indegayforum.org (Stephen H. Miller) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Stephen H. Miller

Requiring Catholic social service programs to extend benefits to same-sex spouses has become the key rallying point against a same-sex marriage bill being debated by the Washington, D.C., city council. Some jurisdictions that have passed marriage-equality legislation, such as the state of New Hampshire, broadly exempt programs affiliated with religious organizations from recognizing same-sex spouses; the D.C. proposal would not.

The council also rejected an amendment that would have allowed individuals, based on their religious beliefs, to decline to provide services for same-sex weddings.

Much discussion takes the form of denouncing the Neanderthal right for its hidebound bigotry standing in the way of true progress and all things good. That may or may not be accurate, but it's certainly not good politics. Forcing religious affiliates to violate their dogmatic principles gives social conservatives a huge rallying cry, and to many independent non-bigots it appears to be using the state to force behavior that violates personal conscience, and a step too far.

A broad religious exemption might be an affront to "equality" (and there are counter-arguments of a libertarian nature that could be made here), but at the very least it would allow us to advance without courting such intense reaction. Take note that New Hampshire, with its broad religious exemption, is one of the very few jurisdictions in which marriage equality looks like it may have some staying power.

More. The efforts of gay marriage supporters in D.C. are directed at having the council pass the measure and then fighting attempts by opponents to hold a referendum. Right now, should marriage equality come before the voters, it would be expected to lose, as it has lost in every jurisdiction where voters have had their say. Time to re-evaluate the strategy, one might think.

Note: Due to a server issue over Thanksgiving weekend, some posted comments were inadvertently lost. Sorry about that.

The Music of the Right

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by David Link

I’ve had music on my mind the last few days, so it makes sense that’s what jumped out at me when I heard this radio ad trying to stir up New Jersey voters about same-sex marriage. The agitated, worrisome musical theme kicks in about 20 seconds in, and its tone has pretty clear, recent echoes. It’s the same kind of troubling, urgent and grim theme used in the Yes on 1 ads in Maine and the Reject Referendum 71 ads in Washington.

There’s nothing new in this. Music is one of the key elements in any kind of advertising or propaganda. But it’s still telling. The emotions our religious opponents have to appeal to – the emotions that help them win – are not the fair-minded and positive ones which are the only feelings we have available to work with. We have no agitation or worry or fear to exploit among heterosexuals. They only reasons they would have to vote for our equality involve justice and fairness and an honest understanding of the fact that we aren’t so different from them. We can only appeal to what is best in heterosexuals.

The anxiety in the right’s music is the anxiety of their movement, and, I am afraid, of their souls.